Analysis of an advertisement – Fragrance “Intimately Beckham Night”

In November 2006 David Beckham launched his first fragrance called “Instinct”, as an internationally recognised name & along side the perfume house Coty they were able to generate revenue of over �20 million. Exactly a year later along with his wife Victoria Beckham they have released their own ‘his & hers’ fragrances called ‘Intimately Beckham Night’ & intend to market further with it eventually being sold in the U.S to try & capitalise on the move they have made to Los Angeles.

To evaluate the way in which they have marketed the new fragrances in the press & the techniques used the Rabostic model covers all areas of the process.

Research is important in any marketing campaign as it can make or break a product. When researching for the ‘Intimately Beckham Night’ campaign the first thing would be to look at the current market for fragrances, how they are marketed, what’s worked well, celebrity endorsed fragrances & also the development of the dual fragrances.

Within the current fragrance market which is a �1.4 billion a year market (Mintel 2007) in the UK its important to look where their looking to position themselves as many fragrances are launched in the UK each year & many fall away because they’ve not researched enough & put in the time to look for openings.

See appendix A Table of much spent by consumers

When releasing the fragrance the original Beckham fragrance will have been available for a year so the need to build on that success is key & probably the reason why the dual fragrances have been brought out after.

The legal & politically issued that could occur from the release of the fragrance could include testing, ingredients & advertising so the need to make sure they’re compliant.

With the move from Spain to LA the social factors could be key, this needs to be looked at on order to obtain whether this has had an adverse effect or acted to further the Beckham brand.

The celebrity endorsed fragrance market has increased dramatically over the last 20 years, this has been in majority the female market but recently the male market has been growing slowly. With the past few years the celebrity endorsed market has began to grow with the first Beckham fragrance, Sean John Unforgivable fragrance by P Diddy & Britney Spears range of fragrances.

The introduction of dual fragrances has increased as there are advantages to this type of launch including targeting, cost & advertising. Recent campaigns that have utilised this have been “Calvin Klein CKIN2U”, “Hugo Boss XX & XY” & the releases of the two versions of Unforgivable by Sean John.

Through researching they will be able to identify that dual fragrances can allow better targeting as the fragrance market is influenced mainly by women who by over a third of men’s fragrances, this can be utilised to influence that factor and encourage buyer behaviour.

The use of dual launches can help on cost as the amount spent on two separate launches compared to one is huge and using one advertising campaign could help to attract audience, whereas with two separate confusion could occur.

The importance of researching all areas are imperative as they are targeting more than one gender & potentially different personalities, the use of SWOT analysis would be beneficial to them.

See Appendix B – Swot Analysis of Beckham Nights Fragrance reinforces the areas covered in research.

When analysing the audience they will have looked at who they are, there demographic, behavioural & psycho graphical characteristics, their profile & also outside of the core customers like influencers.

The decision making unit could allow the advert to attract couples with the two influencing each other in buying the fragrances.

The demographic of the audience they will be looking to target could be consumers between 16-34, both male & female, they could appeal to both families with their family unit & to non families due to their fashionable image. Image is important and this is emphasised by Delong & Bye, 1990:

“Scents can play an important part in the introduction of a person. As such, they play a significant role in the creation of an image – a means of presenting the to others.”

The behavioural characteristics they will be looking to attain will appealing to people who are loyal to the Beckham’s who have followed there career, grown up with them & admire or aspired to be like them. Both David and Victoria have a style & social conscience image which people admire, this has led to may trends starting from either one of them appearing in a newspaper or magazine wearing or doing something.

The usage of the product is important a the advert gives of the impression that the like most fragrances that when warn will create appeal to the opposite sex, so using this type of psycho graphic appeal will attract consumers, as with research its important to look at the usage for the fragrances. Wilkie, 1995 illustrates the use of fragrances within this are:

“Every commercial fragrance has a function; some indicate product benefits, while others promise romantic benefits. In the perfume industry, marketing & image may be more important than the scents themselves”

As the Beckham’s in particular opinion leaders they will influence a lot of people which will be a good attraction for the audience. With the influence they have peer pressure could become a factor amongst social groups due to the image & could also be an influencer in couples, friends & the endorsement of celebrity magazines.

With the celebrity trend & growth of celebrity gossip magazines the Beckham’s have been a big part of this and have been a big influence on these types of markets so to target this and use this would be an advantage.

With the increase of fragrance launches in the past few years and in particularly celebrity fragrances the amount of money that is being sent on advertising and launching a product has increased. An example of this spending can be seen in the research by Mintel into the amounts spent.

See Appendix D – Table of Expenditure

With the large amounts of money being spent it highlights the need to make sure adequate research & planning goes into launching as if it goes wrong can have impact on finances.

The objectives that they will be looking to achieve from the campaign & launch of the new fragrances will be to increase the market share to which the celebrity market has, also create a good share of the dual fragrance market that they are entering & take the Beckham name more global.

With the introduction of the fragrance they will be looking to make an impact with fragrance market & look at ways to utilise the product life cycle.

As the name of the fragrance is “night” there is an emphasis that the fragrance is meant to be used at night & for going out, this can be seen thought eh advertisement as the Beckham’s are both dressed up & the imagery is very dark to give the impression its night time.

Through using this objective of having the fragrance at night it could allow it a specific use & also mean they could market other fragrances for daytime use. I.e. at work. Having fragrances for different occasions is a market they will be looking to exploit as brands will be competing with them including deodorants & other aftershaves.

The strategy in which the Beckham’s will be looking to go with will include many different factors including price, positioning, the unique selling point & the product itself.

The pricing strategy that they have chosen is to be going in a little cheaper than the competition as they have struck up the same deal they had with the first fragrance and started to sell the fragrances at �20 in Superdrug. The positioning of themselves in the market against its competitors is key to whether the product will be a success as price is a good buying signal.

The usage has been used to provide a unique selling point for the product is the Nights theme and having the fragrance used for going out, from research that Mintel (2007) conducted it has illustrated the usage fragrances have & utilised that. Again the research on usage will of enabled them to identify this.

There are many tactics that have been used in order to try & lure the target audience into buying the new fragrances.

The colours used helps to depict the emphasis of night & also underlines the sex appeal that they are trying to capture by the posing in which the two do, both are holding each other.

On the advert the bottles are shown which are the same but slight difference in colour, the male is dark blue & female dark purple/pink, giving the idea of night. The shape of the bottle fits well within the image as its sultry & sleek & with the type face used it sets off the image.

The reason why this advert will appeal to its audience is not only because of the Beckham name but with the sex appeal which will attract the audience. With both Beckham’s appearing this will appeal to both genders as potentially they will be looking to aspire to, identify with & be attracted to the two.

The placing of the advert is key to it being seen by its target, the advert has appeared in several different types of magazine . Using means magazine Loaded it has been able to tap into a young audiences as the type of people who read the magazine tend to be self conscious, try to portray a fashionable image & this fits well with the intended age. They’ve also looked ways in which they can build on the success of the 1st Beckham fragrance by placing the original ad on the next page & this acts to reinforce the brand & image.

The advert has also appeared celebrity magazines such as OK! Hello & Closer, this enables them to reach its female audience as these magazine are mainly read by females & this fits well with its intended audience. These magazines also feature both Beckham’s on a regular basis and provide an ongoing reminder to the audience.

Also within the other adverts the use of advertising where the fragrance can be bought is featured, as they have a deal with Superdrug at which the fragrance is sold at �20 per bottle they are looking to appear as being appealing & affordable. With the success that this bought from David’s fragrance where evident and included a week where Superdrug had record sales when they reduced it in price in the lead up to Christmas 2006 with a price of �8.95 (Mintel 2007), this underlines why they’ve used this method again.

With the Christmas period being the biggest period for sales of all fragrances the introduction of the new product towards October/November then it will allow sales to benefit from the Christmas rush & mean it being bought as a gift.

The press campaign is followed up with a television campaign & also advertising on billboards. The images that appear on both are the same with the TV ad using slow sensual music along with the use of heartbeats & flashing images to help create the sex appeal. Also with the TV ad the voiceover fits within this theme as its a male with a deep sultry voice & helps to continue the message from the press ad.

The use of the internet has been used with a website being set-up given customers a chance look further at ingredients, the history of the fragrance & the range of associated products like body wash, etc.

With the Beckham’s appearing in many celebrity magazines & in the newspapers near enough everyday they will also benefit from the Free PR that they get, around the time of release the Beckham’s featured even more than usual because of there move to Los Angeles, David’s football career with England resurrecting & the couple being seen regularly with other big names like Tom Cruise, Will Smith, etc, all of which are good press for the couple.

Other ways in which they could further implement the fragrance are samples of the fragrance giving the audience something tangible, the couple promoting it in the press & maybe even do a publicity stunt creating more buzz around them, something they have done it the past successfully.

With any campaign its important to make sure that there is control & that continual evaluation is done on the product against its targets. To make sure that if improvement is needed or it can be implemented better I.e. – placing the advert or pricing it lower, then this is done, alternatively if the product is doing well look at possible ways to embellish this.

Having accessed the different aspects of the marketed the new fragrances & the processes involved it is evident that a lot of work is involved in the launch of a new product and that the implementation could mean either the success or failure of a product.